Asus has announced a Steam Deck competitor.

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The ROG Ally has a seven-inch 16:9 display with 1920 x 1080 resolution, 500 nits of brightness, and a 120HZ refresh rate, compared to the Steam Deck specs, which are listed as a seven-inch 16:10 display at 1280 x 800 resolution, 400 nits of brightness, and a 60Hz refresh rate.

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According to Asus, the Windows 11-powered ROG Ally has a customized Ryzen APU from AMD inside, like the Aerith SOC inside Valve’s Steam Deck, and Asus claims it is the fastest one from AMD yet.

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...the prototype was much quieter than the sometimes noisy Steam Deck, measuring at about 20dB compared to the Deck’s 37dB on load, with a dual-fan system that sucks in air from the back and vents it out at the top. He also noted the SSD and joysticks appeared to be easily replaceable.

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I think of the Steam Deck as a handheld console — a Switch alternative, more than anything else. It’s incredible bang for your buck. Its interface is quite simple and designed around joystick navigation. You can plug it into the TV, but it’s marketed primarily as a handheld. You can install Windows on it, but that requires some messing around, and one doesn’t get the sense that it’s an explicit purpose of the device or something Valve actively encourages the average user to do.

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The Ally feels — at least right out of the box — more like a miniature PC. For one, it runs Windows natively. No, it’s not some pared-down version of Windows specifically tailored for handheld gaming things. It’s Windows Windows. There’s a taskbar and a start menu, there are desktop icons, the clock is there — it’s all there. You don’t have to go through the trouble of installing it yourself, you don’t have to dual-boot, and you (hopefully, knock on wood) don’t have to worry about compatibility issues. Steam, GeForce Now, Battle.net, the EA app, and any game that can run on a Windows PC should be baseline compatible with this device without the workarounds or fixes that Valve’s handheld sometimes asks.

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But as we approach the early May launch — Asus is holding a launch event on May 11th — we’ll need to keep our eyes peeled for a few important questions that I can’t answer from my brief hands-on period. First: the price difference. Second: real-world battery life. And third: any glitches.

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There has been no admission on what sort of battery life we should be able to expect out of the ROG Ally, however, and also no real hints at the final price. The closest we got was an Asus representative assuring us that, while the retail price was being held back for a reveal at the May 11 launch event (and will undoubtedly be leaked well ahead of that), "I can tell you for sure that the price will be below $1,000. 200% it will be below $1,000."

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